The Book I Didn't Write

So, when I last posted, I also updated my "What I'm Currently Reading" section, asking, nay, begging for suggestions of something smart and laugh aloud funny to read. I found Mennonite in a Little Black Dress Rhoda Janzen. And it is indeed, smart and laugh aloud funny, albeit, a touch too crass in places. While I'm enjoying it immensely, it is also another one of those books that fall into the category of "The Book(s) I Didn't Write." Which for me means those books that happened because the author actually sat down and wrote all of those thoughts and ideas and experiences whirling around in said author's head (hey, it rhymes!) and then went through the painful process of rewriting, editing, getting published, etc. Unlike me, who has some of the same thoughts and ideas, but I'm never brave enough (there, I said it) to sit down and write a book that someone might actually want to read. But this happens a couple of times a year to me--I'm reading a book thinking, "wow, yes, exactly, I have thought that, done that, wondered that"--but I always dismiss those thoughts with the idea that they aren't quite book worthy. Now, I am definitely the first to admit that my thinking is not quite so witty, nor my writing quite so pity as is Janzen's in this fun romp through Mennoniteville, but when I got to the part where she is describing  how to make Cotletten (German meatballs with ground beef and saltines) I began to wonder if she hadn't visited my Mother's kitchen? And then, when she launches into two pages about how she cooked Hollapse for some of her students, I said to myself aloud, and I do mean aloud so that my eight-year-old was looking at me funny, "She wrote two pages about Pigs- in- the- Blanket? And I'm laughing about it?"  So, the two things that I am left wondering are: could I ever write about the food staples of my childhood and make that many million people laugh, and, hm, I wonder if I would even know how to make my mom's German staples. . . ? Perhaps one of these days I will either ask her to teach me how to can sauerkraut, or I will finally bring myself to write about the stewed tomatoes over potatoes and the ham pot pie.